FW09: All right! So last time we got a glimpse into both Tikki and Plagg's past - as did Marinette and Adrien. Are you eager to find out more? I sure hope so, because we're going back to Tikki's side of things! And compared to Plagg, she managed to progress through her story much quicker, so this will go a little slower.
Additionally, I know that this fanfiction is supposed to be about Tikki and Plagg, but I hope everyone likes the interactions between the Kwami and their holders as well. I figure friend-fluff is also very important. And since they do try to show it on the show, why not showcase it here, too?
*EDIT: I realized that this was unfinished after I published it, thinking that I had completed the backdrop for the story when I hadn't. OTL So I'm reposting the chapter, with a bit more illustration on what happened to the Liu family when Tikki got her luck powers. Anyway, let's get on with the chapter!
Disclaimer: Thomas Astruc is the creative owner of Miraculous: The Adventures of Ladybug and Chat Noir! All characters, except for OCs, are not mine!
Bedtime Stories - Tikki and Plagg
Chapter 3: Marinette's Bedroom and Uncle Jianyu - Part 1
"Marinette...Marinette..." Tikki gently called in a sweet voice, "Time to get up, Marinette."
Unless there were special events regarding a certain blonde boy, Tikki found that waking up the bluenette was easier said than done. The two alarms that Marinette had prepared the night before had gone off already, but in a nearly automatic response, she had hit the snooze within a few seconds. Tikki, however, had woken up just fine, and snuggled one last time into the soft pillow before trying to wake up her holder. Sighing, the ladybug Kwami instead drifted over to the window, making sure no one was looking before closing her eyes and basking in the morning glow of the rising sun.
There was just something about the first rays of sunshine that were so luxuriously warm, so precious, to Tikki's heart. It was one of her favorite moments of the day, and she practically melted into the desk in contentment. Flocks of morning birds echoed across the wakening Parisian streets, and Tikki giggled when a lost starling wandered to the windowsill. Its large eyes stared at her, jerking to and fro as it tried to get a better look at her.
"Hello," she waved lazily, a dreamy smile on her face as she scanned the dark feathers of the morning bird. It reminded her of her own certain someone, though she still hesitated to call him that. Neon green eyes, slit-pupils. Sleek black fur, a Cheshire-grin. And that long, lean tail - that particular appendage had crept into her dreams last night, along with a smug phrase uttered in nasally, catty tenor.
"Missed me, huh?"
"Uggghhhhh..." Tikki put her face into the desk, antennae drooping to sprawl across the wooden furniture. Few Ladybugs ever really pried into Tikki's history, and fewer still the history she shared with Plagg. She never thought that Marinette, of all people, would be one of those few. It had been nearly 200 years since her relationship with the cat Kwami last came into question, after all. But...now that Plagg was brought once more to the forefront of her mind...
WEEE-WOOO-WEEE-WOOO!*
"Wha-huh, Tikki?!" Marinette rocketed out of bed, her eyes disastrously wide, "What's going on?!" Marinette scanned the room, but all she saw was a fleeing starling and her desk littered with knocked-over knick-knacks.
"T-Tikki?" the bluenette brushed a few of her messy bangs out of her eyes and continued looking around. She glanced at her alarm clocks and gasped at the blinking red numbers, blaring silently.
"Marinette, are you awake, sweetie?" her mother called, as if on cue, "I heard your alarms going off, so I thought you were getting ready already. It's almost time for school!"
"I'm almost done, Mom!" she lied awkwardly, jumping out of bed and towards the bathroom, "Be out in a sec!" A furious few minutes later, and Marinette had managed to brush her teeth, fix her hair, change her outfit twice, and jam all of her school supplies into her backpack. She ran towards the door that led downstairs and nearly left until she realized that Tikki had yet to reappear.
"Tikki?!" she whispered as loud as she could, her face a sweaty pink mess from the hurried exertion, "Tikki, I have to go, c'mon!" Finally, she heard a tiny sigh from above and saw Tikki clutching the ceiling like a startled cat.
"What happened?" she asked, opening her bag automatically. The red-and-black Kwami let go of the ceiling and floated down like a fragile flower, slipping into the bag quietly.
"Just remembering why birds are scary," came the soft and embarrassed response, and Marinette remembered the starling from before. She wanted to laugh, but as she glanced at her clock, the bluenette couldn't. It was about five minutes until Collège Françoise Dupont closed its gates to start its lessons, and they had a strict policy on students who arrived late. She remembered her first time having done so, and the horrible gut-wrenching feeling of having her name announced across the courtyard on the PA system. Her homeroom teacher, Miss Bustier, had to stop Literature for a few minutes and walk out to unlock the gate for Marinette, before marching her to the classroom in front of everyone, watching from their respective rooms. It wasn't pretty.
"All right, good luck, hun!" Sabine Cheng waved expectantly to Marinette as she sped past her mother and out the bakery, nearly hurtling into a mime who was passing by their store. She chuckled at the way her daughter fumbled to apologize to the silent performer before running at break-neck speed towards the school.
"You think she's gonna make it to the collège on time?" Tom Dupain came back into the main store, looking on worriedly.
"It's Marinette," his wife gave a chaste kiss on his cheek, laughing, "She'll think of something."
Seven hours later (and about two and a half of those hours spent using her Ladybug Miraculous...including sneaking into school after the gates closed), Marinette slunk back home with a yawn and several pieces of homework weighing down her bag and her heart. It wasn't that she wasn't intelligent, but Mrs. Mendeleiev's homework did take an extraordinary amount of time to do. And having to split time between homework and the spontaneity that is being Ladybug wasn't easy.
"Phew, looks like today's Akuma battle cost you more time than you could spare," Tikki was currently going over the homework in Marinette's bag, "This is a lot of homework."
"No kidding, Tikki," she looked at the setting sun as she marched along home, "Think you can help me out with some of them?"
"Well, history maybe," the ladybug Kwami stuck her head out of the bag cautiously before offering a hopeful smile, "Plenty of experience there."
"Yeah...speaking of history," Marinette changed the subject subtly, craning her neck back to look at Tikki, "Are we going to continue from last night?" The ladybug creature blinked and sunk back into the bag, sighing contemplatively.
"You should be focusing on real history, Marinette," she shook her head, "Not mine."
"Awww, c'mon, I've been thinking about it all day! It was so interesting - hearing about Gods, misdirecting mortals, and your mysterious date with destiny - oooohhhh!" the bluenette wiggled her fingers with a moan, as if she were casting magic, "Oh, sorry - I meant your mysterious future with Plagg."
"Ha ha, very funny," she looked up, the bluenette's teasing causing a smile to appear on Tikki's tiny face. The little Kwami rose out of the bag and leaned on the open zipper cheekily, her head tilted to the side.
"And I hope you know that I know your mind was more on Adrien and his new skinny jeans than anything else." Marinette flushed bright red and sighed. She never could win with Tikki - she was just too knowledgeable about Marinette's life and habits.
"You're impossible to tease, you know that?"
"Comes with over 5,000 years of experience of having to deal with other Ladybugs, Marinette!"
A couple more hours later, and Marinette had finished her homework miraculously - pun intended. Tikki had helped her with history, which was the quickest, and was able to read through the other textbooks quickly while Marinette was finishing her history homework. From there, all she needed to do was point Marinette to the right page, which sped up the process considerably.
"So..." Marinette looked at the clock and was pleased by how early they finished, "Does this mean I get to hear more about you and Plagg? Or at least the rest of your story with Huang?"
"Well..." Tikki had to admit, the bluenette had done a great job of staying on task. She'd only started talking about Adrien three times during the study session, and twice about Chat Noir's antics.
"Please?"
"Mmmm...okay," she gave in, and Marinette fist-pumped in the air, "But only after you get ready for bed. Might as well make this a proper bedtime story." A small squeal escaped the bluenette's mouth and she ran towards the bathroom in a hurry. Tikki was a bit slower in this regard, drawing back the comforter and turning off the lights lackadaisacally.
It was hard for the ladybug Kwami to think about what came next in the story - and she wondered how Marinette would take it. On one hand, being as truthful as she could with Marinette had always been Tikki's number one priority. On the other, if it affected their relationship negatively, Ladybug's transformation could grow weaker as a result. Tikki sighed, then jumped when Marinette burst out of the bathroom, humming happily.
"So, you saved Huang's home and drove away the bandits," Marinette was drying her hair with a towel, rubbing it vigorously as she recalled the last few moments of the story, "Then what?"
"Well..." Tikki took a few deep breaths, sitting down on the back of the desk chair, "Let me see..."
"...What's wrong, Tikki?" Marinette was always observant, and it didn't take much to see how unsure the little Kwami looked, "You can tell me. Or...don't, if that's what's really bothering - "
"No, no," Tikki took one last breath and looked at Marinette, her eyes much less sparkling than before, "I promised I'd tell you how Plagg and I met. And this is an important part."
'It's just not very pleasant,' Tikki added secretly, and she gave an uncomfortable sigh.
"All right," Marinette walked over to the Kwami and took her in her hands. She gave her friend a little squeeze, hugging her with as much tenderness as she could. The bluenette, in retrospect, realized that Tikki's long history wouldn't be all sunshine and rainbows - nobody's would, if you lived as long as Tikki. And she remembered the tiny bug-mouse mentioning that 'it was hard to be nice back then', or something like that.
"Thanks, Marinette," Tikki snuggled into Marinette's embrace, letting her carry her to the bed, "...I'm ready now."
Nearly half-a-year after the bandit incident, Huang's relatives all gathered at their house to congratulate them on another successful harvest. Huang's father, Liu Zedong, had declared proudly that their household was blessed, and presented me as their resident God of Luck. It was unexpected, but seeing the happy cheers and congratulatory remarks, I couldn't bring myself to correct them. I still considered myself a normal spirit, albeit with some intense powers of luck, but my attention was still focused on tending to my home in the fields, which had grown larger to incorporate more expensive crops.
The Liu family home, once a little stilt-hut, had also expanded into a sprawling square siheyuan**. It wasn't nearly as large as a nobleman's, but it sported one main family building, a dining hall for parties, two guest bedrooms for accommodating visitors, and a large foyer that was the entrance to the compound. Boulders that were dug up during the construction were placed outside as a reminder to never forget your foundation or your roots, and carved with characters representing 'compassion', 'moderation', 'humility', 'spirit', and 'luck'. In the middle laid a sand garden, and a stone path that led to a comfy wooden shrine for me to reside in. Prayers were still fairly private and joking in nature, but the ominously powerful and respectful feeling it gave off made me proud and honored. It also made the Liu family relatives rather excited, to think that a powerful God now favored them.
There were even a few who asked if I could visit their fields once in a while, hoping to share in the good luck and fortune that I brought, and Huang's father agreed enthusiastically and in bragging fashion. This was perhaps the source of all our problems, and I remember feeling a cold chill run through the house when Huang's mother, Chunhua, announced the arrival of someone unexpected.
"Huang, your Uncle Jianyu's here!"
The joyous laughter and excited chatter died down nearly instantly. It was as if someone had just unsheathed a sword.
"...What did she just say?"
"Uncle 'Jianyu'?"
"What's he doing here? Is he going to ask for money?"
"Quick, hide the millet wine!"
"Tian, come here, quickly. Don't come out from behind me, do you understand?"
Many of Huang's relatives were not very fond of Jianyu. Whispers and rumors echoed through the kitchen, talking of his love of gambling, women, and liquor. This wasn't uncommon for the poorer families in the region, to have a black sheep in the family, but Jianyu's unabashedness was well-known. To an uncomfortable degree. And it didn't help that Huang's mother was Jianyu's younger sister and only sibling, which meant she was responsible for him until he was married.
"Come out, meet your Uncle Jianyu!"
Huang gave me an uncomfortable look, and sighed. As the eldest of his siblings (his parents gave birth to two more sons and a daughter), Huang had to greet every relative that came to visit - no matter who they were. I floated next to him and sat on his shoulder, comforting him quietly. What his relatives had said only served to cause unease. Huang stepped outside the house and was greeted with the sight of his mother standing by a man who was sitting crookedly on a boulder. His head was mostly bald, save for a long braided queue*** that tumbled down across his right shoulder. He wore the common dull colors of peasantry, and had threadbare sandals for footwear. Tanned and worked skin flexed and stretched as the man smiled at Huang...and me.
"Heheheh...so this's the infamous God everyone's been talkin' 'bout." His voice slurred a bit, and only one of his eyes seemed to be open. When Chunhua stepped out of the way, I covered my mouth quickly, for fear of gasping too loudly. Exposed skin along his chest and arms showed severe bruising, patterned like fists. Huang's mother motioned for us not to stare at them, and not to speak a word about it.
"Hello Uncle Jianyu," Huang's voice was barely above a whisper, not daring to look at the man directly.
"Hello, Mr. Jianyu," I followed Huang's example, bowing my head deeply.
"Hmmm..." there was a shuffling noise and a rustle that got closer. Huang looked up slowly and I had to stifle a squeak when we saw his face only a few inches from ours. His breath had a terrible stench of spoiled wine, and the one eye I had thought simply closed was in fact swollen shut.
"I heard stories..." he spoke in a way that set my antennae on edge, like the way the air is charged before lightning strikes, "Of bandits who became honest citizens because of a bit of luck."
"...Qiji grants people good luck," Huang admitted slowly, unsure of the man's motivations, "And takes care of our fields."
"I see," Jianyu resembled a serpent, his eyes focused on me as if ready to strike, "Has she granted you luck, little Huang?"
"Our fields are bountiful and our land free from bandits!" Zedong spoke, stepping out of the house as soon as he heard the news, "The Liu family has never been so lucky."
"Then surely the Liu family can spare a little luck for a downtrodden relative?"
"No amount of luck will save you from yourself, Tang Jianyu."
"I beg to differ, dear brother-in-law, because I have an offer that you can't - "
"You are not welcome here anymore!" Huang's father spoke thunderously, and Jianyu's forked tongue slipped back into his mouth, "I know what you've done, Jianyu, and I will not tolerate it any further! Not when our future is so bright." Huang turned to look at me, then at Chunhua in question, but she only covered his ears. She looked at me pointedly to not say a word - to anyone about the matter.
"Whatever do you mean?" Jianyu turned to look at Chunhua, "My visits have only ever been social, haven't they? Chunhua?" She didn't speak, and only turned her head away. He stiffened and then started to bristle violently, like an alley cat.
"Look at your brother when you are spoken to, Chunhua!"
"That is enough!" Zedong marched towards Jianyu and grabbed him by front of his robe, "You do not speak to my wife like that again - ever! And you will not bully her into giving you money behind my back! She is no longer Tang Chunhua, but Liu Chunhua, my wife, and you will treat her with respect!" He shoved the bruised man backwards, causing him to fall into the mud with a splat. All the while, Huang stared at the confrontation without hearing a single word. His father was a large man who had toned and conditioned his body from hard labor, but never had he nor I seen him use that strength until today.
"Stop...please."
There was an audible silence that permeated the air. All of the Liu family had watched from the house, talking among themselves about how fitting it was for Jianyu to be thrown out like this. Yet, when Chunhua spoke up, they stopped. Huang's father froze in his steps, and looked at her in disbelief. Jianyu, on the other hand, only cracked a grin and got up from the ground, dusting himself off.
"...Why, Chunhua?" Zedong straightened his posture, "He has done nothing but borrow money with no intention of returning. He does not contribute to the household. He brings shame to his name and ours. Why, why defend this man, Chunhua?"
"I did not want Huang to witness his father murder his uncle," she stated in a trembling voice. The answer was shocking to both Zedong and Jianyu, who each expected something different. However, Zedong nodded after some time and looked Jianyu straight in the eye.
"Never come back, Jianyu," he warned as he straightened his sleeves, "This is the last time you cast a shadow on this family - do you understand?" With a quiet, but restrained look, Huang's uncle bowed slowly and slunk away, though he did cast a glance over Chunhua and us. For the rest of the evening, we tried to forget the event, but Huang and I couldn't. We'd spend most of our time playing or out in the field, working with Zedong, to realize anything serious. Now...we both had our suspicions.
"Qiji...why do you think we've never heard of Uncle Jianyu before?" Huang and I had arrived at the far end of the fields when he asked the question, at the border of a dense forest. The calls of cranes sounded overhead, their winged bodies outlined in the setting sun, and a few ladybugs still lingered in the cooling air.
"...I wish I could say, but I don't know."
Chunhua had asked me to keep quiet about Jianyu's bad habits, so...I lied. It was better to feign ignorance than it was to explain, and it wasn't my place to anyway.
"Tian told me it's because Uncle Jianyu is bad luck," Huang continued, guessing in lieu of my answer, "That 'money flies from his hands faster than a sparrow'." Listening to his cousin's explanation, I mulled over Zedong's accusations. I believed naively that all humans were good, but Jianyu had a different aura from the Liu family altogether. There was just something so upsetting and disturbing about him - like looking into a broken mirror or trespassing in a graveyard.
"Qiji?"
"Yes?" I was broken out of my reverie by Huang's call, and noticed him smiling.
"So, you'll do it?"
"Do what?"
"Grant Uncle Jianyu luck! If you can give Uncle Jianyu a little bit of luck, maybe he wouldn't be so sad! Mother said that no matter what, family is family. Could you help him, please? I promise you all of my moon cakes for a whole week!"
I fumbled for an answer, trying to come up with a reason not to, but everything pointed to me telling Huang the truth about his uncle. There was an indescribable feeling of guilt mixed with responsibility - I couldn't tell Huang because his mother asked me not to, but I couldn't outright say 'no' without Huang asking why. Sighing, I rubbed my cheek uneasily.
"...Would...would it make you happy?"
Huang gave a tilt of his head, as if he didn't understand. Then, he gave another little smile.
"Yeah, it would!"
"...All right," I rose from his shoulder, closing my eyes, "Then we must do this properly."
"Really?!" Huang jumped up and down excitedly, "What do we have to do?"
"...We must meet with your Uncle Jianyu."
Tikki gave a slight shudder, as if a cold wind had blown through the room. Marinette had long since released Tikki from her hold, and she was perched on the edge of the bluenette's bedpost, re-telling the unsavory part of her past with unease. Perhaps it was the fact that the lights were turned off, or the way the shadows were cast across the room, but Tikki felt as though Jianyu's spirit had passed through, watching her with those snake-like eyes once more.
"I wish...I'd never agreed to do it," the tiny creature whispered, looking downcast and regretful. Listening quietly, Marinette was sitting against the wall while on her bed, her knees tucked into her chest. She suspected that tonight's chunk of history was going to be bad, but she never expected to hear the subjects of bullying or family in-fighting. Worse yet, Uncle Jianyu sounded like a total creep and nightmare of a relative.
"You couldn't help it, though, right?" Marinette looked down at her knees, scratching at a fuzzball that formed on her pants leg, "You couldn't disappoint Huang."
"But I knew..." she mimicked the girl's pose, wrapping her arms around herself as she sunk down the bedpost into the comforter, "I knew that Jianyu wasn't a good person. I could feel it. If only I'd told Huang the truth, then maybe..."
Tikki bit her lip as her tiny chest stung with old wounds. It was one of her first, unpleasant memories - and reliving it with Marinette, who was just as sweet and kind as Huang, was painful.
"I'm sorry, Tikki," the Miraculous holder let her legs relax, opening her arms to the Kwami, "I never would've asked if it hurt you this much to remember it."
"...That's okay," Tikki forced a little smile, "We already started the story. And I promised I'd tell you all of it." She floated towards Marinette, and the bluenette embraced her immediately.
"...Are you all right, Marinette?"
Surprised, the concerned teenager looked down at Tikki with a puzzled expression.
"I'm not the one reliving a traumatic moment," she scoffed lightly, and gave her friend another little hug, "I should be asking you that."
"It's just..."
Tikki found it hard to explain. Some of the things she'd experienced in her past weren't pretty. Some of them weren't even decent. And if Marinette thought that this was the worst of it, then...
"Tikki, not only did we just learn about 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', the non-Disney version," she added, "But we teenagers also have something called the 'Internet'. There are literally real-life news stories that are scarier than what you just told me." Marinette smiled at Tikki reassuringly, with a touch of sympathy.
"I'm grateful that you're trying to protect me, but I can handle it. Promise."
"...You're really grown-up, Marinette...you know that?" Tikki laughed a little, showing a real smile for the first time that night.
"I know," she gave a mock flick of her hair, giggling along with Tikki at the gesture, "Now...why did you have to meet with Jianyu?"
"Huang asked the same thing..." Tikki took a deep breath, and began her story once more.
FW09: OK, folks, that's the end of this chapter! LOL Don't worry, this one's a two-parter, so you won't have to wait or sit through Plagg's side. This was originally going to be one whole chapter, but as this started stretching into 6,000-7,000 words, I figured that it might be a little too long for one chapter. I'm trying to aim for maybe 4,000 to 5,000 at most, so that I don't overwhelm myself and can keep up a regular schedule.
If you guys would prefer the longer version in one chapter in the future, let me know! They'll take longer to make, but each chapter would be solely dedicated to either Tikki or Plagg, and it'd be one massive read.
With that out of the way, I have one more thing to explain:
1) WEEE-WOOO-WEEE-WOOO!*
- The sound that scares Tikki is the starling's cry, mimicking a French police car. European starlings are known to copy sounds to enhance their songs during mating seasons. The more you know...
2) The Liu family home, once a little stilt-hut, had also expanded into a sprawling square siheyuan**.
- A siheyuan is an ancient Chinese residence or compound that usually is a courtyard surrounded by four other buildings to make a square. Larger siheyuans are a sign of wealth, since it can be used to house a nobleman's entire extended family.
3) His head was mostly bald, save for a long braided queue*** that tumbled down across his right shoulder.
- A queue was a Chinese hairstyle that involved shaving the front part of your head and braiding the rest so that it hung down in the back. I do understand that the Chinese only started wearing their hair like this after the Hun invasion, but I decided to include this hairstyle for a very specific reason, which you'll see in the next part.
And that's it folks! Hope you enjoyed the first part of the "Uncle Jianyu" arc, the next part will becoming soon!